Researching citizenship: - London Metropolitan University

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Developing Practice-Based Research 3 status attached to it” (Anderson, 2002, p. 22-23). The third reason is about purpose: although practitioner-based research shares the goal of knowledge production, it also has other goals, which may sometimes be excessively emphasized. Anderson defends practitioner researchers as knowing the field better than the ethnographic researcher: their “knowledge is deeper, more nuanced, and more visceral. Of course these characteristics make this knowledge not only more powerful but also more in need of researcher reflexivity and triangulation with other data sources” (p. 23). In relation to the status, he argues that not only do “educational researchers belong to a community of practice” but also that they “might constitute a community of researchers” (p. 24). On the purpose of practitioner-based research, he stresses that the ultimate purpose of research is not knowledge itself, but the transformation of practice. This idea that practitioners-researchers are more reflexive than other researchers recalls Schön’s special role for the development of reflection among educators and other professionals; reflection in practice and reflection on reflection in practice. A reflective teacher would have been prepared to develop practice-based research. In his AERA presentation, Schön (1987) ended with the hope that the promotion of reflective practitioners would be a first step “to create a new kind of research presence, who want to produce experiences and knowledge which is usable by teachers” - the kind of research that would effectively “healing the splits between teaching and doing, school and life, research and practice, which have been so insidiously effective at deadening the experience of school at all levels.”
4 Developing Practice-Based Research 3. Team Meetings about Co-operative Learning and Practitioner Based Research This section is based on observations in pre-school and primary school (3rd grade classroom and a kindergarten for 3 to 6 years olds). These classroom teacher interviews 5 show the importance of collaboration between school staff and parents, and the significance of this for co-operative learning and practice-based research. The three kindergarten teachers placed great importance on their regular daily meetings with the pedagogical director, their monthly faculty and technician meetings, their monthly meetings with the parents association, and their perceptions of the importance of a culture of collaboration growing in their institution. This led us to consider these meeting in more depth. The teachers use co-operative learning in their classrooms, despite the constrains with very young children: Caroline - During planning time ... two children were certain they wanted to go to the construction area to make a train with the child who already had chosen to do this, but when there, they all constructed their own training in isolation. Our classroom observation, visits and interviews of these three teachers showed how they were developing a culture of collaboration. According to Johnson and Johnson (1994) this is the most essential factor to promote successful cooperative learning implementation in classrooms: they presented a scheme showing several co-operative groups in a Co-operative School Organizational Structure: the School board; Superintendent and Staff; Principal Collegiate Groups; Teacher Collegiality Groups and Co-operative Learning Groups (1994, p. 61). The Co-operative School Organizational Structure could be represented as follows: School President and Staff (teachers and technicians) – meetings - one time a month 5 Teachers names are pseudonyms School President and Eight Directors Parents Council - 20 parents and 3 teachers as invited observers meetings - one time a month 18 teachers, 1 Pedagogical Director and the President Meetings - each day from 16:30 to 17:30 Cooperative Learning groups – children in their classrooms
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Researching citizenship: - London Metropolitan University

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